"This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years.  It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions ... All in all, I think we hit the jackpot."

 

So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act.

 

He was, as it happened, wrong about solving the problems of the thrifts.  On the contrary, the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe.  But he was right about the legislation's significance.  And as for that jackpot - well, it finally came more than 25 years later, in the form of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.